All of these ancient French pears are of the same type, but the fruits vary slightly, indicating that the trees were grown from seeds, although some may have come from sprouts since many of the trees throw out sprouts abundantly. The pears are of medium size, usually turbinate, and lemon-yellow is the predominating color. The ripening season runs from late summer to early winter. The flesh is melting, juicy, usually mildly sweet, spicy, not high in quality for dessert but excellent for all culinary purposes. But the most remarkable characters of these French pears are the great size of the trees and their vigor, healthfulness, productiveness, and longevity. The trees have the majestic port of a century-old elm or oak. They attain a height of eighty feet; a girt of eight or ten feet is not uncommon, while one monarch measured by the writer fell a few inches short of eleven feet in circumference three feet from the ground. The leaves are small but abundant, and are of the luxuriant green color that betokens great vigor. The trees have attained immunity to blight, but the fruits are inviting prey to codling-moth when that insect is rife. In these rich river-bottom lands the trees almost annually load themselves with fruit, a crop of from forty to fifty bushels on one tree not being uncommon. No one knows the age of most of these ancient lichen-covered giants, although one which stood until a few years ago was known to have been planted within the pickets of the palisaded fortress of Detroit in 1705. A generation or two ago, these French pears were very common about the French settlements of Michigan and Canada in this region but they have been disappearing fast, until it is doubtful if any of those set by French _habitants_ can be found now. The pears possessed no commercial value, and were replaced by named varieties better known by fruit-growers and nurserymen. It is doubtful if the trees of the newcomers will ever attain the age, size, vigor, and productiveness of these oldtimers of the French, characters which make them noteworthy in the history of the pear in America.